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Reflecting on Leadership Through Assessment

Ashley Gondek

OGL 482: Org Leadership Pro-Seminar II

Ms. Trista Guzman Glover

College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

March 19, 2024

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Introduction

Feedback from analysis helps to identify strengths while identifying weaknesses that

might prevent and block the effectiveness of those strengths, and it provides insights to how to

improve and strengthen areas that need the assistance (Drucker, 2005). Throughout the

organizational leadership major pathway, it has been pivotal to learning and understanding who I

am personally and professionally to understand where I want to focus my direction of

development. There is an assortment of analysis related to numerous theories. Like data in a

business analysis, this is information that helps to gain a clear understanding of the overall

situation. In this unit, we visited some care

Section 1: Kuder Career Interests

The Kuder Assessments aim to assess personal interests and provide guidance for career

and educational options. The Holland Code system, RIASEC, stands for the six personality types

as identified by John Holland, realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and

conventional. According to this theory, the most successful and satisfactory career match is one

that aligns with the results from the assessment. My Holland code for career interests is CAI,

conventional, artistic, and investigative. This makes a lot of sense with my approach, especially

conventional, as I enjoy having to work within the parameters of the business, utilize data to help

problem solve, and keep records. A moment that shocked me was to see artistic come up until I

read the description that this is a value and interest of mine. While I do not see myself as creative

or artistic, I do enjoy using intuition to help solve problems, utilize written communication, and

enjoy encouraging new ideas for creative solutions. Additionally, investigative is spot on for me

as I enjoy gathering information and understanding the whole picture before diving into a
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project, and I am motivated to enhance my mathematical skills and working towards refining my

business analysis skills.

For my career suggestions, I had a moment where I paused and reflected on what was

possible for me. Most of these seemed too mundane for me such as gambling dealers or runners,

pharmacy aide, costume attendant, telephone operators, or office clerks. I expected to see more

from the analysis, but I may need to reassess to see if there is a difference in the results. In the

Meyer Brigg’s test, paralegal came up, and that peaked more of an interest for me.

Section 2: Kuder Skills

The Kuder Skills Confidence Assessment measures an individual’s confidence and self-

perception performing tasks. My score for this was ESC, enterprising, social, and conventional.

It was refreshing to see conventional come up again in this score. Enterprising comes up in

collaborative problem solving from my competencies, social focuses on team building and

collaboration, and conventional is related to decision making and problem solving. From this

analysis, I would want to work toward growing my skills and confidence around the artistic and

investigative types to grow my capabilities and broaden my approach as a leader. My weakest

section here is the realistic category, but I believe this will improve as I grow to become more

confident in my new role.

Section 3: Career Anchors

The Career Anchor Assessment evaluates priorities and motives in the workplace. Each

section offers insights to the intensity that I value each section, and what it not as high of a

priority for me. My scores ranged from 80 to 53 when taking this assessment. My highest scoring
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section received the most points possible, and it was managerial competence. To me, this is

unsurprising since this is my focus each day at work as I have worked towards this promotion for

years. This is what drives and motivates me to show up and do my best each day, and it is what

grounds me in leading my team and being the best possible resource and leader that I can give

them. My lowest scoring anchor, at a 53, is lifestyle integration. This may change as I stabilize

and settle down to have a family, but as a single woman trying to build a career, this is something

that has been on the backburner. This shows up in my priorities when choosing balance between

work, school, and personal life. As I am ready to graduate, I feel like the number will increase as

I will have more time to prioritize my personal life. The main priority for me is to graduate and

be promoted successfully. This can become an area of focus as I settle into my new role more

comfortably because balancing my lifestyle and family is an important value to me as a person,

but currently not currently while I am pursuing intense change in my career.

Section 4: Additional Assessments

Throughout my educational journey with organizational leadership, self-assessments and

reflection have been a consistent method to understanding who I am as an individual and a

leader. They have provided me with insights and guidance on how I can come off and be seen by

others. These self-assessments used to intimidate me and look inwardly and criticize, but after a

few reflections throughout the major courses, I began to understand how these can be perceived

by the team I lead and those around me. I have grown more comfortable understanding that I

have a rare and dominate personality. As a leader, it is important for me to understand the impact

that I might have and learn how to adjust my approach.

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The first test that stood out to me is the Meyers Briggs test, as it was the first personality

test, I took early on in my journey. After retaking the assessment, I remain an INTJ personality

type; I have preferences to introversion, intuition, thinking, and judging. The opportunity for this

personality type is understanding emotional expression, which I have had opportunities to work

through in my personal development. This personality type tends to go after perfectionism and

prefers logic over feelings. One of my areas of growth and opportunity professionally is to allow

myself to recover from perfectionism. Awareness of the dominate traits of my personality allows

me to actively be present in how I deliver feedback and bring my team along with problem

solving.

The DISC test is an assessment of the dimensions of personality regarding domination,

influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. This has allowed me to understand my approach

and style as a manager for my team. I was shocked as well as unsurprised to find that my

dominance chart was a solid 50% of my chart. Compliance was 28%, steadiness 15%, and

influence 7%. This information shows that my dominance can be overpowering in a situation as

my need and want to perfect and control the outcome can cloud my judgement. My area of

opportunity here is to understand my influence and how it interacts with the team I am leading. If

I do not relate to or understand my team, then I am ineffective.

The big five self-assessment is another assessment I have taken a few times through

different periods of my life. The five traits are extraversion, agreeableness, openness,

conscientiousness, and neuroticism. These scores this time around have seemed to appear higher

than previously scored. I was shocked to see my dominating score was neuroticism, but then I

reflected on why this score might have been so high. The responses were from my current

perception. I have many things I am learning how to balance as I finish up my academic journey
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and enter a new job role. Externally, there are family pressures to balance as well. This

assessment has served as an indication to me to slow down and give myself grace. My second

highest section is conscientiousness, and it validates that I acknowledge the commitment and

work ethic I am experiencing.

Conclusion

Ultimately, these self-assessments are tools and not defining parameters that limit what I

am capable of. These are gathered insights to my automatic and preferred style of approaches,

thoughts, and responses. The first step is awareness, and I have been able to utilize these tools to

gain a better understanding of who I am in personal and professional settings. I have a clearer

understanding of what my experiences, interests, skills, and values are. Additionally, I could

understand my strengths, weaknesses, and where I would like to focus my development toward.

The personality tests are great insights for understanding who I am and how I show up for others,

but there were many assessments taken along the journey that have identified my strengths and

weaknesses as a leader. In similar ways, these assessments have provided me with options and

examples to work toward. From those assessments, I merged the idea of servant leadership with

adaptive leadership and integrated a combination of these traits with my approach.

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Reference

Drucker, P. F. (2005, January). Managing oneself. Harvard Business Review.